I climbed out of bed and shuffled toward the shower, stretching my arms above my head as I glanced at the sweater and jeans I’d hung over the back of my chair. Smiling to myself, I continued into the bathroom. I was definitely wearing the outfit.

It took me a little over an hour to get ready. Blow-drying my thick head of hair took almost half that time. I thought about cutting it all the time but couldn’t quite make myself go through with it. My mom had loved my long hair, and she’d never let me cut more than a few inches off when I was a child. I couldn’t even count the number of hours that she’d spent brushing and braiding it, telling me stories about the neighborhood in New York where she and my dad had grown up.

I checked the clock as I got dressed, but I still had plenty of time before I had to be at Hailey’s new place. They were renting a house the size of a postage stamp, so it seemed a little silly to have a bunch of people over, but what did I know? I’d been in the same apartment since I’d moved to Missouri, and I rarely ever had people over.

Hailey wanted me to help her set up the food, so at three o’clock I headed over to her house. It wasn’t a very long drive, but it was raining so hard that it felt like it took forever. Driving in the rain always made me nervous. I’d much rather be holed up in my apartment with a good book, wrapped in a blanket, and drinking warm soup than be out in that kind of weather.

“You’re here,” she yelled excitedly as I ran from my car to the front door of her house. “I’ve been running around like a maniac trying to get everything ready, and I’m so behind!”

“Why doesn’t this surprise me?” I teased as I hurried inside. Hailey was a notorious procrastinator.

“Okay, so I mostly got stuff from the freezer section at the store,” she said, taking my jacket from me and throwing it on her bed as I followed her around the house. “You know, the little pizza bites and egg rolls? But I also got chips and salsa. Oh, and some fruit and vegetables. I figured we could cut those up and put them on trays.”

“How many people are coming over?” I asked as we reached the kitchen. The place was trashed. It looked like she’d been trying to prepare all the food at once, and my upbringing had me cringing at the sight. Kosher foods were carefully prepared. Meat and dairy never mixed; you couldn’t even wash the dishes that held them at the same time, though most people I knew didn’t follow that rule very closely.